Who are we?

Who are we??? Some of you may know the owners of Perks and some of you may not, we are Ken Turlock and Shantelle Lewis. This blog post has been a hard one for me to write, I've been jumping back and fourth changing words for the last 2 month; where do you start how far do you go back, and writing about yourself is not an easy task, so here it goes....

When we started Perks we had no background in coffee whatsoever, except for the fact that it ran through Ken's veins. We have both been self-employed since 2001 when we started a renovation company, from renovations we moved on to finishing carpentry in new homes; we had seen the good the bad and the ugly in new home construction and decided that it was time to build our own houses that were built to last. It has always been a dream of Ken's to build houses, someone is putting their hard earned money into their house and it should be built to last. Ken has always had a construction background, it definitely came natural to him; just about anything he did came natural to him.

We started Kassel Homes in 2011, you would think being first time home builders that we would start small and work our way up; boy were you wrong!! Our first show home was built in an executive subdivision just outside of Acheson, we continued to build a couple more houses in there and one in Genesis on the Lakes. After work one night we meet up for dinner at Peter's Pizza, while we were walking to the vehicle we noticed that there were quite a few open spots in the mall that were for lease. You can almost say a light bulb when off in Ken's head, hey let's revisit our coffee shop plan from 2004. After relooking at our plan, talking with the building owner we decided to make the biggest move of our lives so far stepping out of our comfort zone and open up a coffee shop; hey how hard could it be right?? LOL

We must say Perks has definitely grown into something we never dreamed would be this big, it is so exciting to see people walking down the streets with Perks cups in there hands; as well as the continued support of our customers coming back day after day.

Here's a quick back history of us, Shantelle was born and raised in Spruce Grove; this has always been her home. After graduating high school she worked at Superstore for a bit until she got together with Ken and they decided to become self employed. Ken was born and raised in Canmore, he moved back and forth from Canmore and Spruce Grove a few times until he decided to stay put in Spruce Grove. At the age of 13 Ken started working for a Stucco company, from there he helped his dad with his cabinet shop in Spruce Grove and worked at many cabinet shops throughout his young life. Ken and Shantelle have been together for 17 years, though all the ups and downs, it seems that whatever they put there minds to seem to always pan out; all it takes is hard work and determination; nothing comes easy. From late nights catching winks in the vehicle to early mornings on jobs sites they made there dreams come true.

We now have 3 locations and are ready to open up our 4th store. We still have Kassel homes in hopes that one day we will continue to build houses once again. In the mean time we are continuing to grow Perks and balance spending as much time as we can with our three children as they grow up so fast.